But we had our share of gossips who had a tale they could unfold--a dreadful tale! Beginning with my forging my father's name to get money to spend on Rachel Melrose and other Topeka girls, and to pay debts I had contracted at Harvard, on and on the tale ran, till, by the time the Fingal's Creek neighborhood got hold of the "real facts," it developed that I had all but murdered a man who stood in the way of a rich fee my father was to get out of a land suit somewhere; and lastly came an ominous shaking of the head and a keeping back of the "worst truth," about my gay escapades with girls of shady reputation whom I had deceived, and cruelly wronged, trusting to my standing as a rich man's son to pull me through all right. Marjie was the last one in Springvale to be told of my sudden leave-taking. The day had been intolerably long for her, and the evening brought an irresistible temptation to go up to our old playground. Contrary to his daily habit my father had passed the Whately house on his way home, and Marjie had seen him climb the hill. I was as like him in form as Jean Pahusca was like Father Le Claire. Six feet and two inches he stood, and so perfectly proportioned that he never looked corpulent. I matched him in height and weight, but I had not his fine bearing, for I had seen no military service then. I do not marvel that Springvale was proud of him, for his character matched the graces Nature had given him. As Marjie watched him going the way I had so often taken, her resolve to forget what we had been to each other suddenly fell to pieces. Her feelings could not change at once. Mental habits are harder to break up than physical appetites. For fourteen years my loved one had known me, first as her stanch defender in our plays, then as her boy sweetheart and lastly as her lover and betrothed husband. Could twenty-four hours of distrust and misunderstanding displace these fourteen years of happy thinking? And so after sunset Marjie went up the slope, hardly knowing why she should do so or what she would say to me if she should meet me there. It was a poor beginning for the new life she had carefully mapped out, but impulse was stronger than resolve in her just then. Just at the steep bend in the street she came face to face with Lettie Conlow. The latter wore a grin of triumph as the two met. "Good-evening, Marjie. I s'pose you've heard the news?" "What news?" asked Marjie. "I haven't heard anything new to-day." "Oh, yes, you have, too. You know all about it; but I'd not care if I was you." Marjie was on her guard in a moment. "I don't care for what I don't know, Lettie," she replied. "Nor what you do, neither. I wouldn't if I was you. He ain't worth it; and it gives better folks a chance for what they want, anyhow." Lettie's low brows and cunning black eyes were unendurable to the girl she was tormenting. "Well, I don't know what you are talking about," and Marjie would have passed on, but Lettie intercepted her.